SARIMEHMETOGLU
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Retro-fitting
Yığın (Leftover)
The Alphabet Song
Plotted Leftovers
Knitting
Human Knitting Installation II
CNC Knitting Installation
Human Knitting Installation I
Finger Knitting
Fabric Computing
Robotics
3DGS + Robotics
Verdant Urban
Overprinting
Design for Additive Manufacturing
Cavity Slab
3DGS Slab
Hybrid Computing
Light Leak
Omnifab
Precise Fit
ML as an Instrument
Unrehearsed Compositions
Computational Narratives
Involuntary Shifts
Homage to Erwin Hauer
Sound Installation #1
ZAP!
Machine perception
Counteralgorithms II
Counteralgorithms I
Movement on film
Sequences
Perceived Space
Exhibition Design
Architecture is Art
Space-making
The Interface
Intrastructure
Regenerating a Flux
ULUSKULTUR
Common Ground
MNMTI
2023 - 2024 Fall
Academic + Individual Work
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor - Counteralgorithms
Instructors | Catherine Griffiths
Academic + Individual Work
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor - Counteralgorithms
Instructors | Catherine Griffiths
In this Counterdata project, the chosen issue to be criticized was the lack of recognition given to female architects, designers, and makers in the chronological timeline of architecture/design practice. As an additional layer, mobility concerning photographic productions was also taken into consideration throughout the project. The idea of the female gaze was included as a critical layer through some bits and pieces of photography works. Photography practice in relation to travel and vehicles was expressed with the data to discuss the gaze and vision of the chosen female figures in the timeline of design practice and involvement worldwide from the early 1940s until today.
In the history of architectural practice, female architects who had the privilege of being introduced to a design or architecture education were also a part of the practicing firms and built projects. They had the knowledge, the skill, and their practicing firms. Still, the documentation, recognition, and contribution of these labels as “images” in society are considerately low compared to many renowned modernist male architects when late 20th-century late-modernist and early post-modernist architectural practice is considered. There are rare examples of female designers with an image, a face, and a “name.” Nevertheless, some stories are waiting to be uncovered through the works of others.
One example of these unrecognized cases was Mary Imrie and Jean Wallbridge, whose story was discovered by Ipek Mehmetoglu in her Ph.D. thesis and in the related article “Les Girls en voyage” Gender and Architecture in the Travels of Mary Imrie and Jean Wallbridge (2019), a couple with a practicing architecture firm that was strongly related to their travels and mobility. It was understood from the article and consideration that These women were, in fact, active in the design field; they traveled and documented through this feminine gaze.
In addition to these women, as a subsequent timezone within the timeline of the late 20th century, Denise Scott Brown was chosen as a renowned pioneer of the era. She was among the few women with an image and a famous feminine gaze documented in her photography works. In that sense, she was a rare example of her era as a female designer.
Lastly, contemporary racers, designers, biologists, and their vehicles are introduced in the last portion of the timeline. The definition of architect and designer is extended the same as in today’s understanding.
In the project, the curational operations on the data to convey the concept of the non-existing recognition documentation of specific female figures’ contribution to architecture practice were threefold. Firstly, all the image data are sequenced to mimic a timeline of people starting from Wallbridge & Imrie, Scott Brown, and contemporary designers and actors today. Also, within this chronological curation that separates this three-partite structure of time, within each time zone sequentially, the place (1), the identity (2), the mobility/vehicle (3), the female gaze (4), and the contribution (5) of the actors are identified/classified through images.
The second operation was to generate AI-based images to create the images that did not “exist” in the timeline. These AI-generated images were presented with a blue front drop and blur to differentiate them from the existing ones and to create a gradient within time to hope/see that things are getting better. It can be seen that the contribution portion of the Wallbridge & Imrie case is significantly blue. There is also personal identification lacking in the Denise Scott Brown case; she had a voice but also had a partner who was called with her. Finally, in the part where contemporary designers, scientists, and racers are introduced, there are ideally fewer blue dots in the grid.
The third and binding operation was introducing the famous photograph of Denise Scott Brown in Las Vegas in all cases. It was blended with the self-images of Wallbridge & Imrie and as a symbolic representation of contemporary actors.